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Wrooster London’s Prince Charles Cinema has one thing to mention, it announces it with massive black lettering throughout its marquee. Once, all through a summer season heatwave, it beckoned punters with a blunt: SOD THE SUNSHINE COME SIT IN THE DARK. When its doorways had been boarded up all through the primary Covid lockdown it went for a rousing: WE’LL BE BACK. And after the coronation of King Charles: NO, WE ARE NOT CHANGING OUR NAME.
As is apparent from the repertory of movies on display – David Lynch classics in 35mm, all-night Japanese horror marathons, Sing-a-long-a-Sound of Music and screenings of The Room (ceaselessly with a reside Q&A from director Tommy Wiseau) – the cult Leicester Square spot (Quentin Tarantino’s favorite UK cinema) has a singular position in London’s West End. When the cinema discovered itself going through an existential disaster following a chronic duration of fraught negotiations with its new landlord, passersby simplest had to glance up to be informed that the venue had a struggle on its fingers. Just 3 phrases had been pinned to the board: SAVE THE PCC.
It used to be 28 January when the signal went up. The identical day, the cinema introduced a petition. It decried Zedwell LSQ, a subsidiary of Criterion Capital (one of the most greatest assets gamers in Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus), for the use of its “significant financial resources to intimidate us”. Zedwell, the Prince Charles stated, used to be hard new phrases that will make its long term unsustainable: upper hire, a shorter hire and, crucially, a damage clause that supposed the cinema – which has been at the website for the reason that 60s and operated below its present possession since 1991 – might be pressured to vacate with simply six months’ understand.
Within 24 hours, the petition had accrued greater than 100,000 signatories and brought about a slew of protection. GQ mag accumulated feedback from Hollywood heroes together with Paul Mescal, Robert Eggers and Christopher Nolan, the latter of whom merely stated: “Film culture in Great Britain is unthinkable without the Prince Charles.” Danny Boyle advised the mag: “If this ‘ninth wonder of the world’ ever closes its doors, life will continue but London will die a little death.”
As the furore grew, consideration shifted to the person in the back of Criterion Capital, a businessman named Asif Aziz. This rich assets wealthy person – nicknamed “Mr West End” by way of newspapers after he purchased the Trocadero in 2005 – used to be now thrust into the hoop. In 2020, the Times requested if he used to be “Britain’s meanest landlord” in a tale reporting on Criterion’s determination to take industrial tenants to court docket over unpaid hire all through the pandemic. At the similar time it used to be clashing with the Prince Charles, Criterion used to be ruffling feathers over its plans to shop for the Central YMCA, a ancient group fitness center and gymnasium, which now gave the impression set to be advanced right into a Zedwell resort.
But to many, what used to be going down to the Prince Charles Cinema and the YMCA used to be about one thing larger than a negotiation over hire, or the monetary viability of a gymnasium. It used to be in regards to the continual risk of closure that such a lot of cultural and group areas in London face, the affect of rampant commercialism at the town’s cultural variety, and the reputedly unchecked energy that builders comparable to Aziz wield. It used to be a well-known delusion, person who has performed out repeatedly earlier than, albeit with other venues and other landlords. As Kate Mossman wrote in a work for the New Statesman lamenting the “death of the West End”: “No city in the UK has developers with the same flagrant disregard for its own culture as London.”
Throughout all this, Aziz remained silent – till now. I sought after to determine: who used to be this publicity-shy assets wealthy person with the ability to form the guts of the capital? What used to be Mr West End’s imaginative and prescient for, neatly, the West End? Was he a uniquely hard-nosed operator? Or used to be that specialize in one guy a distraction from deeper, systemic problems on the subject of how city area is negotiated in the United Kingdom? “Asif is very personable,” John Walker, a former director of making plans at Westminster council, tells me. “But is often misunderstood.”
The first time Ben Freedman, the 64-year-old managing director of the Prince Charles, met Aziz, it used to be January 2023. Zedwell had simply purchased the freehold at the construction from its earlier house owners, Soho Estates, and Aziz invited him to his place of work for a cup of tea. Freedman made the fast stroll to Babmaes Street, at the different aspect of Piccadilly Circus, the place Criterion’s headquarters is tucked into the bottom surface of a glassy trendy place of work construction. Inside, he used to be greeted by way of Aziz, 58, who’s, in some ways, just like Freedman: captivating, bespectacled, softly spoken, casually dressed. It used to be, as Freedman remembers, all very delightful.
Freedman, who knew the cinema’s present hire used to be because of lead to September 2025, used to be taken with Aziz’s plans for the construction. “He said: ‘I don’t really know,’” says Freedman. Aziz requested Freedman in the event that they’d like to stick, to which Freedman stated sure. “Then he asked me to do a presentation for his board as to why they should keep us.”
Freedman put in combination a pitch deck, mindful that he used to be already at the again foot. “You’re a single operator dealing with a company that owns a big chunk of the West End,” he tells me, after we meet within the dimly lit lobby of the cinema in March. “You know … you’re a flea dealing with an elephant.” Still, he had some criminal coverage. The Prince Charles is roofed by way of the Landlord and Tenant Act (1954), which entitles a tenant to a brand new hire at marketplace fee except the owner intends to redevelop all the construction, or take it again for its personal use. As lengthy as Criterion wasn’t making plans anything else main, and so they may just comply with the phrases of a brand new hire, the whole lot must had been effective.
“We went back and forth,” says Freedman. “And he and I had a number of conversations about what rent we would be interested in paying.” At first, Aziz requested Freedman to make a suggestion, then, “he said: ‘No, I need a figure beginning with this.’” Freedman made any other proposal. “And he said: ‘No, I need more.’” Freedman changed into exasperated. “It was a conversation where you were bidding against yourself,” he says. By the tip, the determine used to be just about double the hire the Prince Charles used to be paying. The pair agreed it might be useful to have an impartial standpoint, at which level Freedman commissioned two surveyor’s studies, which each independently mentioned that the prevailing hire used to be affordable.
In October 2023, Freedman – who by way of now used to be conscious that Criterion used to be pursuing making plans permission to transform the place of work area above the cinema right into a resort – once more met a consultant of the corporate (and its surveyor). Freedman shared what he were prompt could be a good hire, and Criterion spoke back that it nonetheless believed it used to be price double. “They said: ‘We’re going to search the market,’” says Freedman.
Per week later, Freedman had any other assembly, this time with Aziz’s son, Omar, a director at Criterion. This come upon incorporated some tips that Freedman discovered “bizarre”. The strangest used to be that they must sacrifice parts of the cinema. “‘Could you give up the circle, because we need it for access? Could you take away the front of the building so we can get wheelchair access to the hotel? Can you take a chunk of the auditorium so we can put a shop round the corner in Lisle Street, which we could rent out to somebody and that would mean that we would be able to afford your lower rent?’ It’s, you know, bonkers.” After that, issues went chilly.
Under the 1954 act, when there’s a 12 months left on a hire, a tenant officially requests a brand new contract and the owner has two months to reply. So in September 2024, Freedman put ahead a suggestion for a 15-year hire on the hire they believed used to be honest and so they “waited, waited, waited”. In January this 12 months, Criterion got here again hard the next hire, a five-year hire and a damage clause that will entitle it to – as Freedman places it – “kick them out” with six months’ understand must it achieve making plans permission for a redevelopment.
For Freedman, who had already been bracing himself for a criminal combat, it used to be time for the nuclear choice: going public. It used to be important, he believed, to make it transparent to Aziz that the Prince Charles used to be no longer merely your standard cinema.
A few days later, an area councillor presented to dealer a brand new assembly between landlord and tenant. So Freedman returned to Criterion’s place of work to talk with Aziz. This time, the ambience used to be worrying. “He expressed disappointment that I hadn’t picked up the phone to him and had chosen to go public with the issue. I said: ‘We hadn’t been able to talk to anybody for 18 months …’”
Yet growth, of types, used to be made. Aziz – informally, a minimum of – agreed to drop the damage clause, and stated he’d feel free to comply with a 15-year hire. But he nonetheless sought after the hire build up, with an annual hire assessment. “And that’s in a market where rents are falling,” says Freedman. Criterion, Freedman says, has refused to offer any proof that the upper hire it’s proposing displays the truth of the marketplace.
Freedman remains to be watching for a reaction from Criterion to their counter-offer. And with each and every month that passes, the potential of the dispute going to court docket – by which a pass judgement on will decide what’s a good hire – attracts nearer.
London has all the time been below the thumb of tough landlords, and so they wish to perform below the radar. Much of town’s high assets is carved up between a handful of “Great Estates” that experience held land there since Norman instances: the Grosvenor Estate, the Cadogan Estate, the Gascoyne Estate. “Almost a thousand acres of central London remains in the hands of the aristocracy, church commissioners and crown estate,” writes Guy Shrubsole in Who Owns England?. “They own most of what is worth owning in central London.”
Other gamers also are circle of relatives corporations, together with Soho Estates, which used to be based in 1949 by way of the pornographer Paul Raymond and has a £1bn portfolio. Relatively talking, Criterion is the brand new child at the block. Its portfolio in central London is small compared with the Great Estates and the crown, however in the event you stand within the centre of Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus and glance in nearly any path then you are going to see a construction that it owns.
The aggregation of assets into the fingers of a small team has pushed monumental exchange within the space. London’s main landlords are adept at riding up the worth in their portfolio, rents incorporated, steadily on the expense of the companies that give a town its existence. “More and more things are thought about simply through their financial value and less about their use value,” Mike Raco, a professor of city governance at UCL, tells me. The result of this, in the most straightforward phrases, is that the West End is being “hollowed out”.
Jonathan Glanz, a West End resident, former lord mayor of Westminster, and director of 45 West Group, a assets control corporate, has observed the affect of this industrial homogenisation play out over 20 years. “It’s why, say, a chandelier repairer can no longer afford to be in Soho, why a startup business can’t be anywhere really in the West End,” he tells me. “Long-established family businesses have taken the view that their property is worth more than the businesses and have moved on.”
How to gradual this procedure is a long-lasting conundrum. “It’s all very well to say we need a local bakery or local shops,” says Dr Patricia Canelas, a lecturer in sustainable city building on the University of Oxford, “but how do we make that happen?” A robust making plans gadget is a part of it, she tells me, and it is important that communities shout when they’re unsatisfied, “but at the end of the day, property ownership rules the world”.
Fables about London and its builders are simply shoehorned right into a David v Goliath narrative. Asif Aziz’s personal tale (I’m no longer the primary to indicate) extra carefully resembles that of Dick Whittington. Like Whittington, Aziz – who used to be born in Malawi in 1967 – arrived within the capital as a tender boy with little to his identify. While he has no longer risen to the rank of mayor of London, he’s indubitably just about the placement; Aziz and Sadiq Khan can steadily be discovered rubbing shoulders at occasions within the capital. Today, Criterion Capital has a portfolio of high actual property throughout London and the south-east price about £6bn. Aziz now spends maximum of his time residing in Abu Dhabi.
Aziz, so the tale is going, used to be 16 when he grasped the primary rung of the valuables ladder. He purchased two retail outlets in Deptford, changing the top-floor garage rooms into apartments. London’s streets will have been paved with gold, however a lot of Aziz’s early wealth used to be gathered doing trade in Angola, the place he ran a meals and shopper items distribution company referred to as Golfrate. After promoting it for $20m in 2005, he returned to London to embark on a buying groceries spree for the capital’s greatest jewels. Among them had been the Criterion Building (from which Criterion takes its identify), the London Pavilion and the Trocadero, 3 grand constructions that encompass Piccadilly Circus, the thrashing center of London’s West End.
As Aziz’s assets portfolio grew, so did his profile. Coverage of his trade and private affairs has no longer all the time been flattering. In 2011, the MP for Mitcham and Morden, Siobhain McDonagh, joined her constituents for an indication at Criterion’s place of work in Piccadilly. They had been disappointed that Aziz had sat on a tower block in Colliers Wood for years, letting it fall into disrepair whilst the valuables accumulated price. Speaking in parliament, she complained that the Trocadero had additionally been left amassing mud. “All we really want from Mr Aziz is for him to be a good neighbour,” she stated. “Although if we are relying on people like him to behave decently of their own accord, we might have a very long wait.”
Aziz is “charming, well-dressed and very courteous”, one assets adviser advised the Times, “but he doesn’t give anyone a chance – he squeezes for the last penny.” Elsewhere, Criterion has been accused of shopping for and shutting native pubs, and presiding over a poorly maintained and cockroach-infested housing block in Croydon. How a lot assets Aziz truly owns is tricky to gauge. As Private Eye has reported, he can also be related to a lot of Isle of Man corporations that dangle titles to UK houses.
But it hasn’t knocked him, or Criterion. “Asif’s glass is always more than half full; he is an eternal optimist,” Walker tells me. “I know some people have criticised Criterion Capital for buying and sitting on property, but that is not my perception … The reality is he has transformed some very difficult and challenging sites such as the Trocadero, which many others looked at and failed over many years. When he does things, he does them well.”
At the guts of Aziz’s portfolio is the Zedwell resort emblem, spearheaded by way of his daughter Halima, which opened its flagship department within the Trocadero in 2020, bringing again into use a floundering construction that used to be as soon as a brash video-game arcade however had spent a lot of the previous decade decomposing. Entirely windowless, the resort pitches itself as a sanctuary for sleep within the center of town. Whether this is a masterclass in branding or a imaginative and prescient of dystopia, this is a hit. A relentless flow of visitors drift out and in of the massive minimalist foyer, the place they may be able to test themselves in on capsules earlier than taking a boost to their rooms. The fundamental doubles are about the similar dimension as small rooms in maximum funds motels, however the partitions are clean and the mattress cocooned inside of a floor-to-ceiling picket body – like a field inside of a field. And while you end up the sunshine, there’s not anything however darkness. In 2023, Criterion driven the Zedwell thought one step additional, opening the primary underground resort at Tottenham Court Road, subsequent door to the Central YMCA (within the face of robust opposition from the area people). It plans to scale as much as 8,500 rooms by way of 2028 – plenty of them above the Prince Charles.
Mr West End is also the principle persona of this tale, however he’s under no circumstances the one antagonist within the space. In March, it used to be reported that Veeraswamy, London’s oldest Indian eating place, would possibly have to near owing to a hire dispute with the crown property – pitching a century-old Michelin-starred establishment in opposition to King Charles himself. A petition has accrued 14,000 signatures and the eating place has implemented to the courts to have its hire prolonged. It used to be additionally lately introduced that Covent Garden’s Jubilee Gym could also be going in the marketplace because of monetary demanding situations, contributing to the sense that simplest probably the most profitable companies and products and services can continue to exist on this a part of the city. In a equivalent situation to the Central YMCA, plans to promote it came about in the back of closed doorways and with out group involvement.
The assets corporations – which in contemporary a long time have begun to paintings increasingly more carefully with native government to deal with and upload price to the world – use a selected language to explain the adjustments they have got led to – one in all “uplifting communities”, “maintaining vibrancy”, or “preserving architectural integrity”. It’s a language by which Criterion is fluent. “Community impact and social value guide every aspect of our portfolio,” it states on its site.
In a commentary, it blamed the decline within the West End on a regulatory surroundings that has “grown less supportive of imaginative proposals aimed at revitalising the area” and pointed to its “long-term view” within the stewardship of its property.
When Criterion talks about its socially minded endeavours, it cites the “revitalisation” of the Criterion eating place (now house to a department of the London chain Masala Zone), and its renovation of the Horses of Helios statue in Piccadilly Circus – a partnership with Westminster council and the crown property that “not only preserves a significant piece of public art but also enhances the vibrancy of the West End”. It could also be construction a mosque and group area within the Trocadero.
Aziz has invested closely in supporting Britain’s Muslim group and tackling Islamophobia. Much of this paintings is completed by way of the Aziz Foundation, of which his daughter Rahima is a trustee. It additionally helps tasks and occasions that commemorate Muslim tradition within the center of London, such because the Ramadan Lights, once more just about Piccadilly Circus, which have been switched on by way of Sadiq Khan in February.
after publication promotion
When I started reporting this tale, it gave the impression not going that Aziz would comply with an interview. Then, at some point, abruptly, I gained an e mail from Criterion’s head of communications. “I understand you have been inquiring about Mr Aziz,” she wrote. “We would like to invite you to one of his events, he will be attending and welcomes the opportunity to meet you.”
So I to find myself at an open iftar subsidized by way of the Aziz Foundation and held in Trafalgar Square. It seems to be an unostentatious affair – and unfastened to wait, which supplies it a steady, unhurried air in a space by which it’s not easy to blink with out spending a tenner. Musicians play on a small level, households wander round; a collective calm encircled by way of purple buses, taxis and hordes of visitors.
I loiter in look forward to Aziz; then, between telephone calls, handshakes and waves to his familiars, Mr West End seems, slender and smiley in a easy blue jacket, denims and running shoes. He comes throughout as at ease, unflappable. The Prince Charles scenario, he assures me, with a shrug, is a large number of incorrect information. Before, they had been “paying nothing”, he says, and also have to pay marketplace hire, so “it’s human nature to feel upset”. Anyway, in his view he’s all the time been a cushy goal for the media. “Is it Islamophobia …?” He leaves the query placing within the air.
It’s a fleeting come upon, however one query turns out to catch him off guard. I remind him of his more than a few nicknames: “Mr West End … the Meanest Landlord. How would you like to be known?”
He smiles, handbags his lips quite and rocks on his heels. “No one has ever asked me that before,” he admits. I’m invited to drop by way of his place of work in a couple of days’ time.
Before I take a seat down with Aziz, I talk over with the house of Patrick Joy, 75, a former postman who used to be a long-term person of the Central YMCA. Like maximum of its 10,000 plus regulars, he simplest discovered the destiny of the membership when an e mail used to be despatched out informing him that it used to be now not financially viable, and that it were bought. As a part of a much wider marketing campaign to save lots of the centre, Joy volunteered to position his identify down for a top court docket problem, calling for an injunction to pause the sale to Criterion. The case used to be brushed aside and the centre used to be closed on 7 February.
Joy lives in a rented flat off Gray’s Inn Road, the living room adorned by way of vibrant embellishes and paintings, together with an crowd pleasing Technicolor image of a tiger. He sits in a large leather-based armchair in a brown cardigan and slippers, and tells me how he used to ship letters all over the place the West End at daybreak and cross dancing on the Hippodrome at evening. “I’m a West End man,” he tells me.
As you’d be expecting from a postie, Joy has all the time been a morning individual, and the ones had been the classes he attended on the YMCA. “It was more than just a gym … it was a community centre,” he says. “Especially for older people – a place where you can sit in the canteen and have a good chinwag.” He’s been embedded within the neighbourhood his complete existence, however has watched it exchange in ways in which don’t make sense to him. “It’s a case of big, big business taking over,” he says. “Big business just killing communities with no heart.”
After leaving his area, I wander into Soho, previous the shuttered frontage of the YMCA at the flooring surface of the brutalist St Giles construction, to fulfill David Beida, a sage-like group organiser, a part of the Save the Central YMCA marketing campaign, and a member of the Soho Society, who lives on Dean Street. There, in a room filled with cigarette smoke and De Chirico prints, he conveys his cynicism for Criterion; what he perspectives as its disinterest within the equilibrium of the world. “If it had been any other major West End property company,” he says, “they probably would have sat down and talked to us when they started buying it.”
Camden council agreed to strengthen the marketing campaign (regardless that admitted it had no energy to prevent the closure), and a gathering with representatives from Criterion used to be in spite of everything organized. Andrew Shields, any other campaigner who attended, says they was hoping for a dialog about philanthropy, group and the position builders may just play in holding the West End. Instead, it resembled a trade assembly by which the hire had to occupy the construction used to be floated, together with the likelihood that the group may just proceed working a portion of it.
The campaigners, then again, are decided to retain all the construction for group use. They are actually growing a feasibility plan, and ready to listen to whether or not the construction can be indexed. “Our anger is not necessarily with Criterion, they’re a business. They buy buildings,” says Shields. “Our anger is with the directors of Central YMCA, who took that decision to sell. But with Criterion, it requires dialogue, and [since that meeting] we’ve not had any.”
Shields tells me that every one they would like is to be listened to, for Criterion to “genuinely understand” that what’s been misplaced is greater than only a construction. The marketing campaign continues to name on Criterion to reside as much as the group values it loves to boast of, but if it implemented (effectively) to have the YMCA designated as an asset of group price, Criterion adversarial it. In a up to date social media publish, the Save the YMCA marketing campaign dubbed this the “duality of developers”.
This duality can lead to some surreal group occasions. In December, Criterion held an instance to boost cash for the Soho parish faculty – the ultimate of its type within the space. Parents, kids and “stakeholders” accumulated at St Anne’s Church on Dean Street. There had been beverages and speeches, and a gaggle of faculty pupils sang Little Donkey and We Saw Three Ships. “It felt a little … strange,” one guardian who attended tells me. “Very corporate … there wasn’t much integrating between the community and the corporate people.” She felt as regardless that it used to be designed to let the public know that Criterion used to be doing one thing for the group, “but hearing about the YMCA and the Prince Charles, it kind of did feel a bit like you’re not doing as much as you actually could do”.
Later, I be told that one in all Aziz’s daughters used to wait the college.
A few days after the iftar, two days after Eid al-Fitr, I arrive at Criterion’s headquarters. It’s an open plan area with a full of life buzz. In the centre of the room, plenty of architectural fashions are on display in glass containers. Aziz greets me and I sit in his place of work, which is separated from the principle room by way of a wall of glass. Inside dangle fresh oil art work of Piccadilly Circus and circle of relatives pictures. He fingers me a duplicate of Muslims Don’t Matter by way of Sayeeda Warsi from a pile of a few dozen books on a espresso desk and insists I learn it.
“Property,” he says, leaning again in his chair, “is something tangible, something everyone sees.” From Aziz’s standpoint, Criterion doesn’t behave any otherwise from the opposite estates in central London, “but here, it’s individually owned … there’s a person you can target. But I’m also targeted because I’m a champion of British Muslim issues. I’m very passionate about that. Very, very passionate.”
Aziz has all the time felt one thing of an intruder – ever since he arrived in London elderly six, residing in a flat in Balham with a coin-operated meter – and, like many immigrants, has been formed by way of the ones struggles. “I come from a family which has lost wealth because of” – he’s taking an extended, cautious pause – “political or other events. So financial survival is very important.” The rags-to-riches narrative is attractive, however feels slightly simplistic. I’m curious how a 16-year-old is going about purchasing a area. “At auction,” he tells me, dodging the query.
We communicate in regards to the Aziz Foundation, and I put it to Aziz that some other people see a paradox in making an investment in a group with one hand, whilst reputedly disrupting native existence with the opposite. “Our business interests are not at odds with our charitable interests,” he counters. He brings up the Soho parish faculty. “Twice it’s been through those threats of closing it down and we had a fundraising in December for that. Because it’s our community here.”
But the item is, I say, the college used the YMCA swimming pool, and I do know plenty of folks there are disappointed that it’s closed. He turns out pissed off by way of the advice. “I repeat for the fifth or sixth time, we did not acquire YMCA to close it down. Same with Prince Charles. We’ve not bought Prince Charles to close it down. We have a planning application to convert the upper parts into a hotel. Having the Prince Charles Cinema there adds value and panache to our building, to our hospitality offering.”
Aziz feels as though the Prince Charles row has develop into private. His daughter Halima, who has dropped into the place of work and brought a seat beside us, issues out that once the petition used to be kicking off, the phrases at the marquee had been up to date to learn “Damn the Man”. “See,” he says, “they always have to individualise it.”
There’s an ungainly silence. I’m not sure whether or not to say {that a} billionaire assets developer is as a lot “the man” as you must believe, or indicate that it’s a nod to the well-known line from the 1995 movie Empire Records, “Damn the Man, Save the Empire”, by which the team of workers of an indie file retailer struggle to prevent it being bought to a series. Besides, a negotiation with a landlord is private – it comes down to 2 other people sitting down to chop a deal.
I counsel to Aziz that one of the most frustrations felt in London is that “market rents” had been pushing out sure companies, steadily leading to impartial companies being changed by way of chains – the homogenising, “hollowing out” that UCL’s Mike Raco raised, and that folks comparable to YMCA common Patrick Joy really feel. Besides, consistent with Freedman, the “market rent” proposed by way of Criterion is being plucked out of skinny air – it’s merely a fee Aziz believes he can call for. I suppose, I say, many of us really feel that folks like you could have the ability to select …
“Of course we had a choice,” says Aziz. “We had a choice that we could have put in a planning application to demolish, put in a new cinema or a theatre and a far better building.”
Some weeks later, I test in with Freedman. The cinema has been ticking alongside; it’s lately screening Joe Wright’s adaptation of Pride & Prejudice for its 20th anniversary and, consistent with its idiosyncratic means of working, they’ve needed to name in a ghost hunter to research the supply of a thriller flood that has been blighting the construction. It seems that the cinema is house to a lot of ghosts, however none are answerable for water harm.
Repairs all the time want doing, however it’s tough to know the way to continue whilst in limbo. Freedman remains to be ready on a reaction from Criterion, and is disappointed to listen to that Aziz continues to say that it is a dispute about what the Prince Charles may just pay, quite than what’s honest. “We do not feel as though we are being treated as partners,” he says. “We feel as though we are being bullied.”
In a commentary, Criterion stated the declare it has used “significant financial resources to intimidate the Prince Charles” is “completely unfounded” and “reflects the Cinema’s negotiating approach to date”. It is, it says, in quest of “market terms” and main points comparable to a damage clause are a question for negotiation. “Both parties have engaged professional surveyors and representatives to advise them,” it added. “Should commercial terms not be agreed upon, the statutory process enables either party to apply to the courts to resolve the matter.”
There’s some just right information, regardless that. On 1 May, Westminster council authorized the Prince Charles Cinema as an asset of group price, officially recognising what Freedman and hundreds of others know to be true. “It raises the bar as far as planning permission is concerned,” says Freedman. “It is also recognition of the impact of the people who signed the petition and all the work we’ve done over the years. When you’re in a fight with someone who’s a lot bigger than you, then the more affirmation you can get the better.”
The Prince Charles Cinema has all the time been a defiant venue, and that’s the characteristic it’s showing now. In his combat in opposition to London assets’s Goliath, Freedman refuses to be flooring down, however it’s not a struggle he in particular needs to be having. “It’s a huge waste of resources,” he says. “We would rather be running a cinema.”
